Harris Helps Indianapolis Score

January 1, 2002

When Chris Owens joined the National Football League franchise
Indianapolis Colts at the beginning of the 2001 season, the new manager
of programming and production placed an in-house production studio at
the top of his wish list. So it is only fitting that his wish came true
a few weeks before Christmas with the installation of a brand-new
production facility by Harris Broadcast systems installation experts at
the Colts Union Federal Football Center, the football team's offices
and training facility.

Owens says the new production studio is not a minute too soon for
his production schedule. “We were producing our shows and spots
at our flag ship station, WFBQ-FM/Q95 which is about a 45-minute drive
from here on the other side of town.”

About four years ago, the Indianapolis Colts management decided to
bring all their advertising and marketing efforts in-house. Since that
time, the need for advertising spots, promos and programming has grown
in leaps and bounds. The Colts purchase time from all the media outlets
for their TV preseason games, regular season Sunday radio games and
programming during the week.

According to Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Ray
Compton, the Colts are leading the way to the NFL future with their
marketing effort. He says, “Jim Irsay, the Colts owner, has been
very progressive in his thinking. I guess that you could say that we
are at the front end of the wave because of that. And as our sales have
grown, we have grown more self-sufficient and expanded our offerings,
and this has enabled us to uncover new revenue streams.”

Compton says that it will be a big plus having a production studio
at the training facility for the marketing team to have increased
access to the players and coaches. It also makes it easier to tailor
advertising pitches to sponsors who are more than glad to have the
football staff involved in their advertising message. Compton says,
“In today's economy, you have got to be more competitive. It's
nice to be able to offer these kinds of perks.”

Owens is responsible for producing: Colts Weekend Warm-up (which
Owens hosts), every Friday on Sportsradio WNDE 1260 AM from 6 to 7 p.m.
at a T.G.I. Friday's; The Bill Polian Show, Tuesdays from 6 to 7 p.m.
on Q-95 featuring the Colts' team president; Colts Daily Update on
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on WNDE; and the eight-hour game day
broadcast on Q-95 (five-hours of game day programming for the Colts'
19-station network). The Colts marketing department also produces a
Monday Night television show at 7:30 p.m. on WRTV with the Jim Irsay.
And you can add to the list season ticket sales spots, charity
promotions, cyber training camp updates, requests from NFL Films and
ESPN, and recording news conferences and player interviews for sound
bites posted on the web, to programming material that Owens and the
marketing department handle.

Owens is also happy to be able to create promotional spots for the
many charity events (50 and counting) that the Colts support including
the Marines' “Toys for Tots” Program and the United Way.
Owens produces a fifteen-minute community segment for each Sunday
pre-game show that showcases and promotes the charity events during the
football season.

When Owens was looking for advice on broadcast systems professionals
to equip and install his new studio, he turned to consulting engineers,
Scott Fenstermaker and Dan Mettler from the Colts' flagship station,
WFBQ. Mettler and Fenstermaker worked with Owens to develop a studio
concept, and Harris Broadcast was at top of the list for implementing
their ideas. When it came time to choose a console, Harris Pacific made
Owens' top choice, the AirWave Broadcast Console, and the decision was
fairly simple.

Owens says that the last three stations that he had worked at all
had Harris Pacific AirWave broadcast consoles, “I am very
comfortable with the AirWave. It's not complicated, and it's easy to
use. You never know when ESPN is going to call in looking for
interviews, and it's nice to know that if I have an intern to handle
it, he doesn't need a big manual to operate the AirWave. Everything is
clearly labeled.”

Owens also likes that the Airwave's size leaves room for future
expansion but doesn't have button overkill. With the Harris Pacific
Airwave, Owens has 20 input modules at his fingertips, including
modules for the Orban Audicy, cassette machine and personal computer.
The console has a Telco input/output module that has manual and
automatic selection of mix-minus and offline telco recording and
postproduction. All the panel modules are hot swappable and can be
removed and re-installed while the power is on.

The console also features a microphone preamp module with five
high-performance transformerless preamplifiers, each with independent
trim, selectable phantom power and balanced line level output,
all-electronic audio switching, convection cooled power supply and gate
array logic with built-in machine interface.

Since the studio is also Owens' office, the Harris Custom Furniture
cabinet is a special design that addresses the needs of an on-air and
production studio as well as well as an office. Generous amounts of
open and enclosed storage for books, binders, and computers was
provided in addition to the usual complement of rack spaces to hold
studio equipment at hand for the Operator. The cabinet accommodates up
to three guests. The Colts specified a slighter taller height of the
countertop than most sit-down cabinets. Since many of the guests for
the programs are NFL players, the need for extra space was very
important.

The Harris custom-wiring package installed for the Colts presents a
combination of operational flexibility, expandability, and value. The
wiring harness was fabricated in the Harris shop. The harness and all
the studio equipment were installed in the cabinet, and the system was
run through functional testing in one day. With Airwave module audio
connectors independent of module logic connectors, adding or changing
machine start remote control cables was an easy task.

For the telephone-based system, Owens chose the Telos Zephyr ISDN
Audio Transceiver. The Zephyr makes ISDN an easy and effective tool for
broadcast and audio professionals, with full bandwidth and equal
quality in stereo and mono.

The Zephyr system includes: an ISDN terminal built-in with
connection to the telephone network via a single modular cable; 50
user-programmed auto-dial sets include codec section settings and the
numbers of the remote locations you can dial; and bi-directional,
RS-232 serial data at 9.6kb/s for communications and control, which are
transmitted simultaneously with the program audio.

Compton, Owens and the Indianapolis marketing staff are glad to have
an in-house production facility. Everyone feels that the possibilities
are endless when it comes to the advertising and marketing program for
the Indianapolis Colts. Ray Compton says, “We are at the
beginning of a new era for the team.”

Owens adds, “I can't tell you how pleased I am to have this
position and the new studio. The Harris people did a great job. I'm the
luckiest guy in the NFL…until Super Bowl XXXVI that
is.”